Transcript | Ep. 104: How to Get Botox

Dana Berkowitz: We have a double standard of aging. And women age, you know, they start to age at like 30. And that's why a lot of I think that's why Botox is so seductive to women in their 30s, because it's not really about defying aging. It's about like designing agelessness. It's really about freezing your your face in time really right before you hit middle age.

[Theme music]

Cristen: To Botox or not to Botox. Caroline, that is the question that I honestly never thought I’d be asking myself. And yet, here I am, a 35-year-old woman and a guilty feminist, considering Botox.

Caroline: Well honestly Cristen, as you know, if money and COVID were no object right now, I would get my forehead shot up tomorrow. Why not?!

Cristen: Because patriarchal beauty standards, right? Like, the feminist voice in my head is telling me, Cristen. Girl. You are worth more than your face value. And then I see the giant crevasse between my eyebrows ...

Caroline: Oh yeah. I mean, I WISH I didn’t care about my forehead wrinkles, but I REALLY do. Part of me hates to admit it, but … I’d think I’d feel better with some botox!

Cristen: Well Caroline, according to today’s guest, Dr. Dana Berkowitz, we might be going about this whole feminism vs. Botox tug-of-war all wrong. Which is … actually kind of comforting!

Dana: You know, the question I get is Botox good is Botox bad. Are you for it? Are you against it? And I think that trying to construct any sort of intelligent argument within the confines of this debate is pretty much impossible. Because the tentacles of our consumer culture, of the beauty industry, of the anti-aging industry, of big pharma. Right. These tentacles are so far reaching and they're so pervasive that rather than talking about like, is it good or is it bad, we need to focus on the institutional demands placed on women and how these occur within a system of pervasive gender inequality.

Cristen: The tentacles of beauty culture and institutionalized sexism?! Now this — THIS — is the kind of the feminist Botox discourse I’ve been longing for, Caroline!

Caroline: Same! Dana is a professor of sociology and gender and sexuality studies at Louisiana State University. She’s also author of the book Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America. Today’s she’s gonna mythbust the good-or-bad Botox binary.

Cristen: It’s all to find out: What exactly IS Botox selling, and why are Caroline and I so fucking tempted to buy it?

[Stinger]

Caroline: When Dana first started working on her book Botox Nation, she was 31 and she thought she knew exactly where she stood with Botox.

Dana: My argument was like I'm against Botox, OK? And then, you know, academic monographs take quite a while to write. So I aged as I was researching and writing the book and during the process of researching and writing the book, I watched my skin begin to sag and wrinkle. And I think I was really surprised at how profoundly this impacted my sense of self. In addition to this, I was interviewing cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists, and in the interviews I asked them to point out which of my wrinkles could be Botox-ed. And it was actually quite agonizing, voluntarily subjecting my face to these close readings by these medical and beauty experts. And then I did an analysis pf media messages on Botox and women's beauty magazines. That was a terrible idea. I don't advise it for anyone.

Cristen: Why was it a terrible idea?

Dana: Have you spent much time reading beauty magazines?

Cristen: Oh, I mean, I, I grew up with. I mean, I think I'm catching your drift. But like was it Even as an academic did you still find yourself internalizing it?

Dana: Oh yeah. The messages are so powerful and they're so pervasive that. Yes. Yes. I found myself internalizing them. And it was I think it was like 35 when I first tried it. And I was really amazed at how refreshed and awake and even a little younger I looked. I remember feeling secretly pleased, but also like incredibly overcome with guilt and shame about my decision. Feeling like I had capitulated to these very patriarchal and consumerist ideologies. I was supposed to be critiquing. And then when it starts to go away,, you start seeing the lines reappear. All of a sudden you're like, oh, you know, that changes your perception of what is good and what is beautiful, what is normal. And so eventually I got it again. And eventually I would say that I probably became a habitual user. I would get it a few times a year for the past six years unless I was pregnant or nursing. So, you know, it dramatically changed my perception of beauty and my perception of normalcy.

Cristen: Today, Botox is the most popular cosmetic medical procedure. The injections temporarily paralyze the facial muscles that form expression lines -- like frown lines or brow lines. So that’s how it reduces the appearance of wrinkles.

Caroline: Cristen, as we learned in Botox Nation, the discovery of Botox as a cosmetic treatment was kind of a fluke. See, Botox is the brand name for a neurotoxin called Onobotulinumtoxin A. By the late 80s, doctors had figured out that if you inject Botox into muscle, that neurotoxin stops it from contracting — basically acting like a long-term muscle relaxer. So Botox was initially just used to treat conditions like eye spasms and uncontrollable blinking.

Cristen: Then one day in 1987, a Vancouver ophthalmologist named Jean Carruthers got an unexpected request from a patient. Jean had been treating a woman's eye spasms with Botox injections, and during one visit, the woman was like, Dr. Jean, pleeeaaase shoot me up between my brows again … I love how it makes me look. And Dr. Jean was intrigued. Her husband was a dermatological surgeon, so she told him about it, and they decided to run a preliminary trial … on Jean’s receptionist Cathy!

Caroline: Poor Cathy. Apparently, Cathy had noticeable brow wrinkles, and the couple convinced her to let them experimentally shoot her face up with Botox. And at the very least, Cathy deserved a raise because just four years later in 1991, Dr. Jean sold the cosmetic treatment to the pharmaceutical company Allergan. Then in 2002, the FDA greenlit Botox for “the cosmetic treatment of moderate to severe frown lines between the eyebrows.”

Dana: What Botox has done is, I mean, it's really transformed the battleground against aging because the only other way you were able to, quote unquote, fix these lines was through surgery, was through facelift or an eye lift. Because it is quick and easy and really has no downtime, it's it's really widely marketed to the American everywoman, and it's a lot cheaper. Well, it seems a lot cheaper than getting a facelift or a cosmetic surgical procedure because it averages about $300.

Caroline: You said seems like.

Dana: Yeah, seems like because the catch is, is that Botox only lasts three to six months. So you have to keep doing it, and so that adds up. Right? Figure, you know, two to three times a year. Three hundred dollars. That adds up pretty quickly.

Cristen: Ever since the late 1800s when ladies’ magazines became a thing, women have been sold the idea that we should preserve our youthful appearance by any means necessary.

Caroline: Just as long as your anti-aging efforts aren’t too obvious. Otherwise, you’ll be shunned as a vain old fool.

Cristen: In the 20 years that cosmetic Botox has been around, the folks getting it have also gotten younger and younger. Because these days, “prejuvenation” is the new rejuvenation.

Caroline: Cristen is not making up that portmanteau. “Prejuvenation” is the industry slang for cosmetic procedures and injectables marketed to folks under 30. So now hear about women in their 20s getting so-called “preventative Botox” or “baby Botox.” In fact, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2018 there was a nearly 30% increase of folks in their 20s getting Botox.

Cristen: And the idea is that if you start Botox early enough and basically keep your brow and forehead juuuust paralyzed enough, you won’t develop expression lines to begin with.

Caroline: We’re going to take a quick break.

Cristen: When we come back, Dana sheds light on why Zoom life has some of us feeling like withered old hags, and we weigh the pros and cons of Botoxing away resting bitch face.

Caroline: Seriously, don’t move!

[Stinger]

Caroline: We’re back with gender studies professor and sociologist Dana Berkowitz.

Caroline: What does the ready and willingness to get Botox say about our culture’s, our beauty culture’s pain tolerance?

Dana: So it's funny, when I interviewed Botox providers, they all told me that men were - they could not take the pain. And I think it's because women, we're just used to just the idea of a needle in our face is like not that foreign because we're just used to doing things to our face and body that are painful in the pursuit of beauty.

Cristen: Oh, yeah. I mean, I regularly just forcibly rip hair out of my own face.

Dana: Yeah. I mean, yeah think just think about it like hair removal. In general, right? I mean waxing laser like all that is incredibly painful. High heels are incredibly painful. Spanx are incredibly painful. Just there's an arsenal of things that we do to our bodies that cause pain in the pursuit of beauty. And I think that women are just used to it. And that’s just really sad.

Cristen: There are also a couple reasons why Botox is primarily sold to women. For one thing, our facial skin is typically more delicate than men’s, and we tend to emote more. So all our smiling, scowling and side-eyeing crinkles up that delicate skin over and over again, and those crinkles eventually deepen into wrinkles.

Caroline: The Botox solution to that is to temporarily smooth out our wrinkles by restricting our facial expressions. But the feminist take on Botox is much less cut and dried, especially now that women tend to be the ones giving the injections.

Dana: It used to be you know, a lot of the early research and scholarship on cosmetic surgery, a lot of the feminist scholarship on cosmetic surgery was critiquing this, you know, male doctor, this male expert who is constructing this ideal like feminine body. You know, through his view of like what perfection should be. Right now, it's so different because dermatology is actually a very family friendly, you know, women friendly subspecialty of medicine. So there's, you know, many women are now injecting other women. And so it's a very different dynamic from what the early feminist scholars were documenting in the 1980s. But again, I think that it's very much intertwined with our - you know, these are circulating ideas of post-feminism. This idea that we can have, we can do anything we want as women, as long as we look good while we do it.

Cristen: As Dana notes in Botox Nation, research has found that personally identifying with feminist ideology doesn’t magically inoculate you to beauty myths. And Caroline, I personally identify with those findings!

Caroline: For sure. And as you and I also know, Cristen, deciding to get Botox doesn’t magically become a feminist act just because you chose your own choice and went for it.

Dana: and so what it has taught me, though, is that. It's a false choice, right? This notion is it good. Is it bad? Are you for it? Are you against it? Is it empowering? Is it disempowering that, you know, thinking about it in terms of these binaries it's really a false choice. So I think that my my own experience in thinking through it and writing through it really illuminated these tensions.

Caroline: I'm really interested in getting a little deeper into into that false dichotomy and what. It overlooks like good versus bad, empowered versus disempowered. Like, what does that overlook in terms of like us personally making decisions versus all of the forces that are acting on us? And when you just say that you're a bad feminist or a good feminist because you did or did not get Botox. Like, what is that leaving out?

Dana: We live in a society that encourages women to derive their worth from their physical appeal. And so in those, pursuing and achieving beauty is going to feel good and pleasurable because when we're you're attractive, right? It's socially rewarded. So I think we need to think about the way that our participation in beauty culture can make us temporarily satisfied with our ability to fulfill this projection of attractive and worthwhile woman. But to say this is an individual choice, I think is really problematic because I think the pressures placed on women to comply with dominant beauty norms are painfully obvious. And that's really what I try to show in my book.

Cristen: Blaming women for Botox ignores allll those tentacles of our sexist culture that Dana mentioned at the top of this episode. Like, unless we’re Alicia Keys, folks will openly comment about how sick and tired we look if we show up to work or a date without makeup on.

Dana: Right. Particularly in this this era, this like post-feminist era where we believe that they to. Feministic like choice, feminism, right? I mean, embrace the status as long as it's not really at the expense of their feminine appearance. Right. So even though we're allowed to play with the boys in their sandbox, our social power is still very much resides within our beauty and our bodies.

Caroline: Yeah a choice is not feminist just because you're a feminist who makes it.

Dana: Right. Right. And Nobody's marching you to the dermatologist with a gun at your head. Right. That doesn't mean that it's an autonomous choice. Right. And just because you worked hard and made the money to buy yourself this Botox doesn't make it empowering right?

Cristen: Also. So I'm I'm 35 and my - my perspectives have also changed as I have gotten physically older. Like, it's it's much easier to say like. “I'm a feminist. I don't need Botox. I'm 25 years old,” than it is when - so I don't have an 11. I have just like a one

Dana: A one.

Cristen: And it's like just growing just taller and taller every day. It's going on a growth spurt. And I know intellectually that that one does not define me. But. God, I think about it a lot.

Dana: Right. Well do you think about it more now that we're all on video all the time? Or do you. Are you, like, active on social media? I think one of the consequences of social media and like selfie culture is we like sort of turn the the lens on ourselves. Like literally and we like we are watching ourselves age. And like almost like a flipbook when they go back and see pictures of ourselves over the years, they're very much at our fingertips in ways that were not before.

Cristen: Yes. I do think that social media and selfies have impacted my my attention to my one, because I realized one time when I was kind of in a mental spiral over like, oh, my God, how do I look like I'm 8,000 years old now because I saw photos on my phone that I had posted from like a year before where I'm like, What? What happened? And then I remembered, like, oh, Cristen, you airbrush your face before you post it. like it's like I had forgotten what I what I look like when I look in the mirror.

Dana: Right. Yes. Right. And particularly so I just learned that Zoom also has filters. I didn't know that I was having a meeting with a colleague. And I was like your skin looks really good. She was like it's a filter. And so I think that, you know, it's this idea that, you know, looking like yourself isn't good enough anymore, you need to look like you, only better

Caroline: It's funny, I laughed at the part where she was so eager to tell you that it's a filter.

Dana: Yes.

Caroline: It's like it's not that anyone anyone's trying to be sneaky and be like, no, I still look like I'm 25. It's it's it feels like it is connected to the fact that we do have to stare at ourselves all day on the computer now. Like I am so self-conscious all of a sudden so much more this year about my forehead wrinkles and to the point where a friend of mine on Instagram posted something about it. And I was like, oh my God, me too, why is my forehead aging faster than the rest of my body, but?

Dana: I mean, I think that one of the reasons is because that's the face that we make when we're really upset.

Caroline: Yeah

Dana: And I think we're all really upset right now, and that’s OK

[Inside Edition clip]

Announcer: This Mom is tired of people asking her if she’s upset.

Mom: I could’ve gotten a great night sleep. I could be in the best mood. And people are still like ‘Why are you sad? What happened?’ I’m like nothing. I’m so happy.

Announcer: 46-year-old Marjorie Tangelof said she naturally looks like she’s scowling or frowning. Put it another way, it's called Resting Bitch Face … Plastic surgeon Dr. David Schaeffer says he has the solution, a procedure that makes people look friendly….

Cristen: That was a clip from a 2019 Inside Edition story titled, “Mom Gets Botox to Look More Friendly.” And as grammatically incorrect and absurd as that may sound, it speaks to one of the deeper reasons why Botox has blown up.

Dana: Trying to look happy and nice all the time is exhausting. And I think that Botox can, you know, sort of liberate the face, rescue the face from having to do that work of always looking cheerful and happy. So part of it is that for sure, we just don't like the way we look when where we were skeptical. And it's not even that we don't like the way we look skeptical. You know, people don't like the way we look very skeptical. And so I think why Botox is so enticing to two women is that it can liberate the face from its resting bitch state. And it produces this like flattening of affect. So we can't really emote. We can't really appear perplexed or pissed off. And so in terms of emoting, right, I think that's really enticing to women.

Caroline: In 2018, researchers at Northwestern University surveyed hundreds of Botox patients. They found that in addition to, you know, wanting to look more attractive or feel better about themselves, about 60 percent specifically wanted to look good in a professional setting.

Cristen: That jibes with Dana’s research, too. She noted how women often described Botox as a way to boost their career. For instance, an anthropology professor she interviewed got Botox, and her post-Botox student evaluations were noticeably more positive.

Dana: the professor that I interviewed, I think that her story is really interesting because. Because her students found her, like more friendly and more deferent. Qualities that somehow made her a better professor than she was one semester earlier when she could actually furrow her brow and furrowing your brow is like an expression of intellectual skepticism. And I also think that this illuminates the link between looking good and the social and economic rewards that come from beauty, particularly for women. Right. Because our our evaluations right. They eventually go into a dossier which, you know, they're reviewed for our tenure and promotion cases. Right. And so there's like actual rewards that come from looking deferent as a woman. And I think that's really troubling.

Caroline: There’s also a related theory called the facial feedback hypothesis. It proposes that controlling your facial expression can directly affect your feelings. Like, if you want to feel happier, smile ladies.

Cristen: Or in the case of Botox, if you want to feel less irritated, temporarily paralyze your frown muscles!

Dana: And so there is some really fascinating research done by a German scientist, Andreas Henein Mudar, where he conducted an experiment to test the facial feedback hypothesis. And he had half of his female subjects who had Botox and another half who didn't. Right. That gets to control group imitate these angry expressions in an MRI scanner. And he found that the women with Botox impaired brows were unable to make the expressions and and they had significantly lower levels of activity in the part of the brain that activates anxiety and anger. And so what I argue in my book is that Botox functions as an emotional lobotomy of sorts in the way that it emancipates women from having to vigilantly police expression and and actually like lobotomy, right, reduces the negative feelings that produce them.

Caroline: Oh, it's like the new mother's little helper.

Dana: Yeah. Yeah. Except it doesn’t make you feel good.

Cristen: Yeah, I was gonna say. An emotional lobotomy body does not - it does not sound like an antidepressant because - or even like. I mean, Caroline and I are both very highly therapized, like I just hear my therapist being like, “But you aren't dealing with the issues.”

Dana: Right! Right. And you're not. Yes, I think that's a really good analogy.

Caroline: The claims around Botox have even gone as far as to say that Botox can cure depression. But that’s hardly accurate. Botox is not clinically approved as a mental health treatment. And as Dana told us, a lot of the research advancing these kinds of claims are funded by Allergan - you know, the company that owns Botox.

Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to wade into the unregulated world of cheap Botox and medspas

Caroline: Don’t pop off!

[Stinger]

Caroline: We’re back with Dr. Dana Berkowitz, author of Botox Nation.

Cristen: This is a very oversimplified question. Is Botox a rich white lady thing.

Dana: So to an extent, yes, and to an extent no, what is really unique about Botox is the way that it's marketed to the American everywoman. Right. It's not marketed as a rich white lady thing. But. The expense of Botox suggests that it is a relatively privileged practice. And we tend to forget that most women don't have a thousand dollars a year to spend on Botox. And most women. You know, many women don't even have health insurance. So while it is marketed to the American everywoman, the fact that it averages about a thousand dollars a year makes it only available to a privileged few. There's also research that indicates that beauty ideals that women subscribe to and the resulting beauty work that follows is deeply associated with social class. I think it's really fascinating that you know, poor people look older earlier than their wealthier counterparts. But anxiety and fear about aging is much more common among middle class and rich women. And so the irony is that those who lack the financial wherewithal to purchase cosmetic enhancements like Botox are more hopeless and actually probably more realistic about aging. Because they know they can't afford the expensive and aging regiments of the wealthy. You know, this is a really ironic that the women who are able to keep their youthful appearance the longest are the women who actually feel the defeat of age most severely.

Caroline: And what about the beauty ideal that it reinforces? Like what kind of what kind of face are people aspiring to when they get Botox?

Dana: So. They're aspiring to a face that looks like you only better. It looks like just the best version of you. We want to look natural. You don't want to look like you've had any work done. You want to get Botox, but you don't want to look like you've had Botox. There's the catch 22 and you're supposed to conform to these gendered beauty ideals that you're not supposed to look like you do. You can't make it too obvious because then if it's too obvious, it kind of looks like you cut corners and maybe went to medical spa. Right. And so this is where the class dynamics also come in.

Cristen: The class dynamics of Botox have also intensified as injections have gotten cheaper. Dana actually points out that finding a good deal on Botox can be one of the key motivating factors for women to pull the trigger and get it.

Caroline: But discount Botox users beware! Cosmetic Botox has helped spawn a new, largely unregulated industry of so-called “medical spas.” In the past two decades, thousands of them have sprung up in strip malls across the country, offering aesthetic procedures like laser hair removal, chemical peels and, of course, Botox.

Cristen: But safety regulations vary state by state, and there’s no standard legal definition of what constitutes “medical,” let alone a “medical spa.” This has resulted in a notable gender dynamic - most of the state lawmakers who HAVE attempted to pass med spa regulations are women, and many of their proposed regulations have been voted down by male-dominated legislatures.

Caroline: Yeah, because medspas largely cater to women who are paying out of pocket for cosmetic procedures, the risk factors of unregulated medspas are often downplayed as simply the price some women will pay for vanity.

Dana: what surprised me so much when I was doing the research for this book was, is that there is no federal regulation in who can inject Botox. The consumers of these procedures that you would get at a medical spa are predominantly women and the practitioners are predominantly men. And so I think that can tell us a lot about the ways by which this reproduces gender inequality in terms of like who is the provider. Right. Who is the consumer? And how these don't have any regulation.

Caroline: So, for instance, licensed cosmetologists and aestheticians are only legally allowed to perform procedures on the skin’s surface -- like getting a facial. But Botox injections should only be performed either by medical providers like dermatologists OR by a nurse under a doctor’s direct supervision.

Cristen: As for medspas, what Dana was referencing was how many of them are owned by male doctors, and medspas can play fast and loose with who’s doing the Botox because there’s so little oversight. Like, even though a medspa might be run by a doctor or have a medical director on staff, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the doctor will be doing the injections. So before you cash in a Groupon for some cheap Botox, do your homework and ask the medspa about their credentials and who’ll actually be performing the injections.

Caroline: Yeah, Cristen, one thing I read about that just horrified me are botox parties — like, tupperware parties but with needles and booze! And they’re usually held either at medspas or in people’s homes.

Cristen: Yeah, on a recent episode of Selling Sunset -one of my favorite garbage reality TV shows - they actually had a botox and burgers party. Here’s real estate broker and arch villainess Christine preparing for her party.

[CLIP: Selling Sunset S3]

Christine: I wanted to do something really really big..And i invited every broker in Los Angeles. So I feel like if we do Botox they’re go/nna come

Broker: I think we’re in Hollywood after all, right

Christine: We have wine and people can drink. We can booze people up, before we put needles in them

Cristen: Yikesss Christine! That sounds like an ideal environment to get some neurotoxin injected into your face. Now, if you’re getting Botox from a licensed medical professional -- the side effects are rare. But in poorly trained hands, injections can cause problems like eyelid droopiness, headaches and crooked smiles.

Caroline: We heard from one listener, Chelsea, whose first — and last — Botox injection left her with extreme headaches and lethargy for A YEAR

Cristen: And let us not forget when Kim Kardashian had a bad reaction to Botox in a 2010 episode of Keeping up With the Kardashians.

[CLIP - Keeping Up With the Kardashians]

Kim: I don’t know what to do like my eyes won’t stop watering

Khloe: I’m sure it’s just what happens after you get Botox.

Kim: Thank you so much.

Khloe: What are you doing?

Kim: I’m making an ice pack for my eye

Khloe: You’re so dramatic.

Kim: I’m not so dramatic. You don’t even know what this feels like.Seriously, something’s wrong, This isn’t right. The doctor did warn me about side effects, but I’m feeling like my eyes are on fire.

Caroline: Medical side effects aren’t the only tradeoffs to consider, though. Cristen, like I said earlier, I would totally Botox! The only thing that would dissuade me would be if I could no longer quizzically raise an eyebrow. Seriously, if I cannot communicate with my eyebrows, who am I??

Cristen: Caroline, this feels a little ridiculous to say out loud, but I wonder if Botox would make me less funny. Like, I’m a very facially active communicator and storyteller -- which of course, is why I’m a fucking podcaster. But I would definitely rather have a funny old resting bitch face than look unbothered and get fewer laughs. I’m just being honest

Caroline: Yeah, I hear that. You know who’d just roll her eyes at this conversation?

Cristen: Who?

Caroline: Francis McDormand! That is one woman who does not give a fuck! She’s been in Hollywood for decades and has famously avoided the pressure to get work done. Here she is pointing out her wrinkles to an incredulous Katie Couric.

[CLIP - Katie Couric interviewing Francis McDormand]

Katie: I think it’s fantastic that you have embraced your age. And I’m wondering if by embracing it, I mean do you ever have moments where you see your yourself on screen Francis, and you think uhh!

Francis: Oh yeah. It’s not like I don’t look at my face and go oh look at that. But I also at the same time, that, that one right there. That one. That’s Pedro, that’s my son. 20 years of going hi or wow. This is the map. This is the map. This is the roadmap..

Cristen: Caroline, I definitely appreciate Francis’ wrinkle philosophy. And especially in an era when we’re soooo focused on our faces, it’s helpful to remember that we don’t only have to see our crow’s feet and frown lines as negative marks against us, yknow?

Caroline: Totally. Because it’s telling that a highly accomplished woman NOT getting Botox is a Katie-Couric-interview-worthy topic, right? And it also reminds me of that kind of feminist moral binary we started our conversation with. It’s like if you get Botox and nobody can tell, you’re doing it right. But if you get it and your face is noticeably frozen, it’s bad and you’re trying too hard. Which is so messed up!

Dana: Yeah, and I think that when people say, oh, she you know, she looks so fake. She looks so Botoxed, she looks so frozen. These women are doing. These women are doing what they're told to do. Basically, they either have just, you know, maybe done too much or they didn't go to the right provider. Because they couldn't afford it.

Caroline: So it's a lot of class and morality all tied up together because natural beauty is is.

Dana: Effortless.

Cristen: Yeah.

Dana: And there's no I mean, there's really no such thing as natural beauty.

Caroline: Right.

Cristen: Well, so for unladylike listeners and maybe hosts debating whether to Botox or not to Botox. What would you recommend we consider as we answer that question for ourselves.

Dana: Yeah. OK. So I think you should consider that once you start, you probably won't stop. I talk about Botox as addictive. And it is. And I know this from not just from the research I conducted, but from my own experience. It is. It's. It's like dyeing your hair once you start, you oftentimes don't stop. Right. So if you want to start, know that you are signing up for a probably a lifetime of Botox use. And in addition to being addictive, it's also a gateway drug. It's the marijuana of cosmetic procedures. You will likely move on to dermal fillers, which are more expensive than Botox. And eventually you might get so comfortable with needles in your face that you are more open to surgical procedures. So just know to your listeners that your listeners in their 20s and 30s, please don't be seduced by the claim that Botox is preventative. It's only preventative if you keep on using it. That means you have to continue to get injections every three to six months for the rest of your lives. Which you probably will do if you start to use Botox. So if I can't talk you off the Botox ledge, at least just wait until you're older. I guess that's my advice.

Caroline: Well, Cristen, did Dana talk you off the Botox ledge?

Cristen: You know, She did I mean, at least at least for now, I'll never say never, but in the process of making this episode and talking to her, learning how Botox works and just really having to think about that one, that giant wrinkle between my eyebrows and why it bothers me so much, I feel like my next step before considering Botox is I want to, I need some more spiritual filler. OK.

Caroline: There you go.

Cristen: You know, like I want to keep working on the deeper insecurity that no amount of Botox will be able to fill. And I don't know, maybe this is like a weird switcheroo, but I think I think I'm going to get some more tattoos instead for now, apparently, I just like really needs to like needles in my body anyway. But Caroline, what about you?

Caroline: She didn't talk me off the ledge. She talked me like a little bit down from the ledge, like maybe I'm spreading out a picnic blanket, you know, putting on some sunscreen and thinking about it a little bit longer. And I wish I could say, and this is where I need to do some work because I feel honestly like hashtag bad feminist apologetic about it. It's really not because of the feminist or beauty industry tentacle considerations. A lot of it has to do purely with the financial aspect. And so when Dana talks about how, like once you pop, you can't stop, that to me is is scary from a purely financial perspective. Because Cristen, I already spend like a bonkers amount of money on creams, serums, face washes. Like things that are actively anti aging. So A, what's so different about Botox other than it like hurts physically and freezes my face versus just like moisturizes my face. So I don't know. Like I do think that I and I envision myself getting it at some point because like the way you feel about your one between your eyes, I feel very distracted by my forehead wrinkles. So I feel like it's kind of an inevitability, but who knows, I mean, again, like five years from now, maybe I'll be like, man, I'm fucking Frances McDormand. You hear that?

Cristen: But you know what, Caroline? It's also totally OK if you aren't like Frances McDormand. I mean, I think that's also a big take away of this episode is not not to get choice feminism about it. It's like we need to recontextualize this conversation entirely because those tentacles I can't shut up about them. They are they are vast and they are hard to escape. And the fact of the matter is like would I look better with Botox? Yeah, but just in the place for me where I'm at right now, I'm OK holding off. And I'm really, really interested to hear what listeners have to say. And as for your point about the financial, I mean, that's what we got to keep making podcasts.We can get you some Botox money. OK.

Caroline: We'll work it out with a financial advisor.

Cristen: Exactly. Exactly. At our local medspa. You can check out Dana’s book Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America wherever books are sold!

Caroline: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly bonus episodes, listener advice and more fun at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.

Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Production help from Camila Salazar. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin

Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.

Caroline: Next week…

Gen Lindsay: I was casually dating somebody. And I remember them telling me, you know, I don't feel anything when I touch your face. Don't worry about it. But it didn't really matter what they said. I could see it. I could feel it. It was as if my skin was crawling all the time, just my hyper awareness of it. And I do remember being more distant with the person that I was dating, and it took forever for me to even let them in

Cristen: We’re talking adult acne - what causes it, how it impacts our confidence, and how we can manage our breakouts without our mental health breaking down!

Caroline: You don’t want to miss this episode — or any episode this season!! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Cristen: And remember, got a problem?

Caroline: Get Unladylike.